• Hi folks, hope you’re having a fine weekend. Finally some warm, sunny weather to enjoy here in PA and it shows. By the way, if you’re in the area here in Central PA, be sure to check out the reviatalized downtown area of Harrisburg. There’s been some great shows to check out there in recent weeks — Two good bands from the 90’s played some very intimate shows. Last month was Tonic and just this past Friday it was the Gin Blossoms. Due to the small venues, you can basically walk right up to the stage just a couple feet from the band — And hey, any singer that does a cover of “Flaming Moes” and crowd surfs over everyone for a shot of Jäger at the bar is cool with me. Check out RockInPA.com for upcoming shows and dates.
  Alright then, let’s wrap up this weekend with a few stories of interest…

• If you’re planning to go into Jersey Girl cold turkey, we suggest you HIGHLY avoid the latest issue of People Magazine (July 7th). On Page 49, in the “Insider” section, a small blurb on the film completely ruins the major plot twist in the film. A few folks have been so irate they’re cancelling their subscprtion to the magazine. Granted, in this technological age it’s getting harder to avoid spoilers, but hey, at least WARN readers before you start giving away plot points.
  As far as we’ve seen so far, trailers and publicity for the film are going to attempt to hide this plot point, in the hopes that audiences WILL be caught off guard. As always, we request you stay away from spoilers in your posts and talkbacks here, and we’ll be doing the same. Hopefully a handful of you at least will be able to go into Jersey Girl and not know the entire film’s plot before you see it.

• If you’re in the UK, you can get a great deal on the Dogma DVD from HMV. It’s been marked down to £3.99 as part of their summer sale.
• Wanna see a Russian Dogma website? Sure you do.
• And finally today, how about we check in on an old friend from back in the Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back Days?

• The new edition of Previews announces this new item that’s sure to be hanging on many a fan’s wall next year – The View Askew 2004 Almanac! This 12-month calendar (in clever “widescreen edition”) should be available for purchase soon at your local comic shop, and we’re assuming the Stash will have plenty as well. Here’s their official release:

• You’ll find a very cool NEW trailer for RSVP in many formats and sizes at the Lions Gate site. Mark tells us that the preview disc he’s seen features a lot of great extras and nice menus. We’ll keep you posted. And don’t miss the trailer. It’s way slick.
• Let the Bennifer press machine begin! Looks like July 17th will mark the first major press that the duo are doing for Gigli — Let’s only hope Jersey Girl can get some major tube time like this as well:

Thanks to the Philadelphia Inquirer for the story.

• This web comic strip called “Sheep ‘n Bones” references Jay & Bob in the first frame.
• Finally today, we’ve received confirmation that the German airings of Mallrats and Dogma are indeed the German dubbed versions of the films. One German fan wrote in with these amusing throughts:

Meanwhile, German TV magazine “TV Spielfilm” has some stories (in German, if you can read it) on Mallrats and Dogma (which we can at least see they give a “thumbs up”). Catch ya next time.

• We are very pleased to announce that the EXLUSIVE View Askew figures available only at The San Diego Comicon (Next month, from July 17th through the 20th) will be the Steve-Dave and Walt designs you’ve been seeing from the upcoming Mallrats wave. But yes, this will be the ONLY way to get them! Alright, alright, we know what you’re thinking. Sure, you’re thinking we’ll have extras at the Stash after the show ends. And sure, that may or may not be true. But remember that San Diego is a HUGE con, so if these puppies sell out, don’t come crying to us! You’ve got a month to get to San Diego or find a pal out there to pick you up a set. We promise you they’ll sell fast (heck, maybe even Bry or Walt will sign ‘em for ya).
  So if you needed ANOTHER reason to hit San Diego, that’s it for sure. Oh, and hey, we expect this means they WON’T be included in the first wave of Mallrats figures…Hmmm…Wonder what the final four chosen will turn out to be?

• As if the exclusive above wasn’t cool enough, Brian “Dante” O’Halloran stopped by the office recently and signed a few of the inaction figures bearing his likeness. These are limited so don’t hestitate to order one before they’re history. The color version: $15.00 each. The exclusive B&W version from Wizard World 2003: $20.00 each. Brian told us he’s never signing another piece of View Askew merchandise again, so you want to get these NOW!
  Alright, just kidding. We’re sure Brian will be signing as much as he possibly can. But as for these figures, we’ve got what we’ve got, and when they’re gone, that’s it!

• Last night’s “Comic Book Superheros Unmasked” on the History Channel was quite good! Kevin makes some really good comments on the industry in his segment from the show. Did ya miss it? No problem. We’ve got it for ya. We’d like to thank Karate Media http://www.karatemedia.com for editing and encoding Kevin’s footage from the special. It runs about 2 minutes and is available here in RealMedia format. Enjoy!

• We’d like to congratulate Eric Leppala who very quietly hit yet another counter milestone here at News Askew over the weekend – Twelve million hits. He was kind enough to send in a screenshot of his achievement. We’ll hafta see if we can send the dude a prize or something. It’s not every day we have a big bunch of zeros up there like that.
  As always, we’d like to remind everyone that’s been coming here for so many years, as well as you new peeps, that we appreciate your support and this site continues to exist because of your contributions and, well, because you come. So thanks for coming. Thanks for reading. And thanks for sticking with us. As always, we’ve got some surprises planned for the coming months this summer, some contests, new material, and more — If the lawn would just stop growing long enough to get any real time in front of the computer. But hey, seriously, thanks again, everyone. We love you all. Thanks for allowing us to continue to bring you the news.

• Kevin appeared at the Key Art Awards in Los Angeles over the weekend to present an award, and the very sneaky Chris Ryall managed to snap a photo of him doing that duty even though flash photography was a big no-no. The event was held at the Masonic Temple on Wilshire in Los Angeles, and gives props to the best movie posters, trailers, and such from the past year. The Hollywood Reporter had some nice ink on the event, here’s a snippet:

Read their entire piece HERE.